


darling, dearest, don't you see (voices left inside of me)

by teamfreehoodies



Series: the most dangerous thing is to love (you will heal and you'll rise above) [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: And he deals with them! This is That Fic!, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Disassociation, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It's Time to Process Those Emotions Y'All!, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, Letter Writing as a Plot Device, Mama Pankratz's A+ Parenting, Professor Jaskier | Dandelion, Rampant Abuse of the Em-Dash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamfreehoodies/pseuds/teamfreehoodies
Summary: He doesn’t owe Loretta anything, not even to read this, he reminds himself; he could burn the letter and be well within his rights to do so.But.But he loved her. Loves her, still, against his better judgement, because she’s his sister and maybe that didn’t mean anything to her when she sold him to Nilfgaard but then, hadn’t she only been protecting her son? Didn’t it all come down to family no matter what?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion (Mentioned), Jaskier | Dandelion & Loretta Pankratz, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: the most dangerous thing is to love (you will heal and you'll rise above) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910713
Comments: 28
Kudos: 149





	darling, dearest, don't you see (voices left inside of me)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh Hi Hello, OH MY GOD? 
> 
> I know it has been a very long time, and for that I do apologize. But it's here now, and it's (I hope) worth the wait!
> 
> Betaed by the ever lovely ghostinthelibrary, I owe you my soul and many many thanks as well. Without her this would not be nearly as good as (I hope!) it is.
> 
> Title from Dirty Imbecile by The Happy Fits

Oxenfurt in early spring is one of life’s many comforts. Much as Jaskier misses Geralt and Yennefer and Ciri, coming back to campus as a lecturer fills him with such pride it’s hard to feel too cut up about it. His legacy carries on. This year’s students are a particularly rowdy bunch, and already he’s had to field more than one hamfisted attempt to wring some sordid war story out of him. 

The fact that people even know he’d been captured by Nilfgaard had come as somewhat of a shock to him, but he supposed he had been “missing” for quite a while that year. _Never deny a bloodthirsty crowd_ was a tried and true maxim that Jaskier liked to stick by, so he supposed he might have to write a ballad about it after all. 

He hadn’t thought it a particularly rousing tale, but the people know best what they want, and well. It wasn’t like he couldn't find a way to make it better, now, was it. 

He enjoys the slow walk back to his rooms, relishing in the crisp spring air. It’s not often he gets a chance just to wander across campus like this. He’s usually much too busy, but he’s found a rare quiet moment, so he decides to swing by and pick up his mail; it’s been a while since he sent out his last letters to Geralt and Ciri, and then Yennefer respectively. He might have replies by now.

* * *

He doesn’t actually look through his mail until he’s back in his rooms. He’s picked up a surprising number of letters, and he tosses them onto his desk as he divests himself of doublet, boots, and lute case, preparing for a quiet night-in of answering correspondence and maybe getting some work done as well. He’s on more peer-review boards than he really wants to think about right now. 

There’s a letter from Priscilla, then Shani, both of which he sets aside to answer as a reward for later. Geralt and Ciri have replied to his latest letter as well, he’s pleased to see, so he drops that to the desk to read immediately. That leaves only a letter from—

Lettenhove. Shit. 

He opens it, curious, and a little rattled maybe. This is... unexpected. It’s been nearly three years since he was captured, a letter now doesn’t... really make sense. The letterhead is the same. And there, that’s her signature at the bottom. Gods, but it’s really from her, isn’t it. 

The letter falls from his suddenly nerveless fingers, and he drops into his seat behind it, rattling the quills in the little vase Yennefer pretended to begrudgingly gift to him the first semester he taught after the whole “tortured and transformed into a child” _thing._ He absentmindedly reaches out to still them, trying to beat back the sudden memories of cold stone and ice water, of peppermint and pain and blood in his teeth. 

The letter stares him down from where he’d dropped it, folded over itself so the damning letterhead is hidden but he can just see the signature, peeking out at him. Loretta’s handwriting is as loopy as it’s ever been, elegant in a performative way that sets his teeth on edge, gritted against the knowledge of what all those gentle loops are hiding. 

What does she want? It’s been three years— three years of no contact, no word, not a letter, or a messenger, or an invitation of any sort; just silence, damnably echoing with all the things unsaid between them.

He hasn’t thought of Loretta in all that time, content to anxiously keep an eye on the war effort from afar, doing his tepid-best spying for Dijkstra when called upon, and making himself a general nuisance when not called upon, just for the pleasure of seeing that bastard grimace.

And now, this. 

He’s trying to avoid the reality of the damn thing sitting on his desk, but his chest is uncomfortably tight and all the distraction in the world won’t help him with this. 

What could she possibly want with him? After everything?

He won’t know unless he reads it, will he. He has to try twice to get his suddenly clumsy hands to actually grasp the letter. But once he's holding it, he slams his eyes shut in a tragically childish response to not wanting to face this... _gods,_ this _utter bullshit._ He laughs at himself, feeling punch-drunk and on edge, then passes one shaking hand over his slightly damp eyes and clears his throat, determined to try again.

He doesn’t owe her anything, not even to read this, he reminds himself; he could burn it and be well within his rights to do so. 

But. 

But he loved her. _Loves_ her, still, against his better judgement, because she’s his _sister_ and maybe that didn’t mean anything to her when she sold him to Nilfgaard but then, hadn’t she only been protecting her son? Didn’t it all come down to family no matter what? 

_Gods,_ just thinking about it isn’t doing him any good. He’ll have to read it.

> _Julian,_
> 
> _There is no good way to begin this. I am so dreadfully ashamed of my actions of the past, and I wish only to write to you now to ascertain the veracity of certain rumours which have reached my ears here in Lettenhove. This may very well be a foolish letter, returned to me with bad news, or worse, no news at all. But, like all Pankratzs, I find myself convinced in the possibility of hope, and no matter how small the chance, I must at least try._
> 
> _This is difficult to write._ ~~_I_ ~~_~~please don’t be~~ _ _When that horrid mage took you away, I thought we’d be done with it, and that my sins would condemn me, but at least my son would be safe. At least he would get a chance to live and to grow up and to be healthy. It was a selfish wish of mine, and it nearly cost you your life. And there are not enough words in the entire world to express my sorrow._
> 
> _They didn’t leave our house. Not immediately. It was almost three months to the day when they told us you had been killed, before they left. The Skelligan sea dogs came through not long after that, and we were told of what was happening in Sodden. I asked if it was true, if you were really dead, and received no word either way. I clung to that tiny sliver of hope and then... All those years when we were younger, before I wrote you last, I had contented myself with rumors. Jaskier the Bard has sung again about his white wolf, Jaskier the Bard has been recently in Novigrad, Jaskier the Bard has just won the Poet’s Crown in Toussaint, and I told myself that was enough. But this time no rumours came. I thought if only I would hear tale of your witcher, maybe, but he had disappeared too, gone to ground the way I hoped you had. And then, a year had passed before I knew it and finally, they said you had been seen again. A new White-Wolf ballad, a genuine Jaskier original and it was only fear of your hatred that stopped me from chasing after you._
> 
> _I tried to track your progress and I thought of what I would say to you, and I am still not sure what I can. I want to say sorry, to apologize, to prostrate myself before you and beg for forgiveness._ _I don’t know if I deserve it,_ _I don’t know if you would even consider granting me it. But it has been so long and I only ask you remember that I was in an impossible situation— I could have resisted had they threatened anything else, had they not held a knife to Matais’s neck and bade me write that letter I would have gladly died before giving you up, for all that we hadn’t talked in years. You are my brother, Julian, and I love you, I do, though I know I haven’t always done right by you._
> 
> _You were supposed to bring your witcher._ _I thought_ _Well, it doesn’t matter I suppose, given how it turned out, but that was the only thing I could think to try, to mention him and see if he wouldn't come with you. I didn’t even think they would let me include that much. And none of this, gods, but none of this matters, really, none of it absolves me, or even softens the burden of this transgression but I find myself trying to rationalize it in my head anyways, to try and make sense of how easily they twisted me._
> 
> _A threat to my son and I folded like a cowed dog, like a fucking wilted flower and it... It reminded me so much, of all those times as a child where you stood up for me, and I never did the same for you. When Father would bring out the switch for me you were always in the way, making some larger mess so he would be angry with you and not me, and I never. I never thanked you, for as awful as it is that I should have to, I never once told you what that meant to me, too afraid to be honest about what had happened to us, too beholden to his memory and not enough to my living brother who I can see now was right to resent me. Right to refuse to come home._
> 
> _The only kind thing I ever did for you was to hide what poison Mother took from you, and I ruined it when I tried to bring you home for father’s funeral. I should never have gone after you like that, but I just— I was so alone, for the first time and I thought that. At least, if you came back, maybe I wouldn’t have to be lonely. If nothing else, this, at least, has forced me to confront the rotten core of my selfishness._
> 
> _I know that I have no right to expect anything of you. But we have thought you dead this past year, and I am afraid once again, of losing you. I must try. So I am sorry, Julian, for everything, but most especially for not being strong enough to spare you. If this letter finds you in good time, I only hope for a reply, so that I may be assured of your continued health._
> 
> _Please, though I know I have no right to ask it of you, please, Julek, forgive me._
> 
> _Love,_
> 
> _Loretta Pankratz_

The letter is shaking in his hand, or maybe that’s him, but he almost misses the note beneath it. It slips past his hand, and he drops Loretta’s letter on the desk, bending over to pick up the little folded paper from where it fell. He unfolds it, desperate for answers, and finds only a short note from Dijkstra. 

_Found this in your file; if you bothered to actually read what I sent you, you might have gotten it earlier._

He sets the note down, carefully, atop the letter. Stares blankly out the tiny window just above his desk. Carefully, so carefully, stands up and holds his body stiff like it is alien to him; he tries to quell the surge of whatever emotion is rising through him. Rage, or misery, or grief; a riptide of all of them swells up his spine and he lashes out, punching the wall next to his desk, once, then twice, then a third time before he realizes he is crying. He sits down, heavily, bypassing the chair entirely to fall to the ground. 

Jaskier cradles his aching hand to his chest, furious and despondent at once. Three years, he has not heard from her, thinking she didn’t care, and here the letter had been sent and waiting. She had tried and what, he just gave up on her? Or, hadn’t she given up on him first? Hadn’t she betrayed him? 

But only to save her son, and she’d tried to use a code, tried what was within her power to do— his thoughts circle around each other endlessly, cavorting around the growing sorrow in his core. His heart has been ripped out of his flayed open chest and beaten like a dog, wrung out, and it aches, it aches, it aches. _Gods,_ but this _hurts_ — it’s a hurt beyond naming, beyond anything but the physical need to curl around the wound— what wound, _what wound_ _,_ he holds his hand to his chest and pushes, _pushes_ into the bruised flesh, digs his nail into the split skin on his knuckles, rubs and rubs and _rubs_ at the same spot on his wrist— he loses time.

Loses time. 

Loses 

time. 

* * *

Hours later, he comes back to himself on the floor beneath his desk. His hand hurts. There’s dried blood beneath his fingernails, dribbled in a streak down his arm from a sore on his wrist, blood smeared on the flagstones. It’s not enough to carry with it the smell, but he imagines it anyways, the copper sting of it hitting the back of his throat.

He stands up. His bones ache, compressed as they were, and he is reminded suddenly of just how old he is: far too old to be throwing fits in his chambers, to be falling apart because of words on paper, because of—

He flinches away from the letter. Flinches away from the memories, which for three years have not bothered him; for three years he carried on like it had only been a strange sort of vacation, nothing so much as a misadventure, the latest in a long string of them. He closed the door on them and thought that was it, and now his mouth waters with the phantom taste of peppermint, and he gags, leaning over the tiny wastebasket in his room, spitting fitfully to try and expel whatever needs expelling. 

Jaskier starts laughing, because he’s crying, or maybe he’s crying because he’s laughing; _it’s a paradox_ he thinks inanely, and then vomits, watery bile which burns like dragon’s fire— at least the false peppermint is gone, overridden by the acrid taste of stomach acid, burning the back of his throat. 

He hunches over the wastebasket thinking sour thoughts; a tiny voice whispers to him in a spiraling loop; words he has not heard for decades: _pathetic, waste, emotional,_ like it is a mortal sin to be these things. He shakes his head, leans over the wastebasket. Sets it down and stands up, tries to think of something else.

A book on his desk catches his attention, and he latches onto it, desperate to put some distance between this moment and the next: it’s a maths treatise a colleague had asked him to review, nonorientable surfaces, of all the thrice forsaken things; dreadfully boring but maybe enough to distract his mind long enough to settle back into his body. 

Shapes and numbers and the only thing he really takes from it is the idea of a closed boundary curve, a strip rolling back on itself constantly: a closed loop with only one surface, a mobius strip of misery and he’s locked into it, traversing endlessly down it’s path. _Pathetic,_ the voice whispers in his head, and he throws the manuscript down, disgusted with himself and his inability to break free of this fucking loop he’s in. 

A scream is building in his throat, so he grabs his coat, shoving his jittery limbs into it haphazardly as he gathers his key and his shoes. He’s only half in his boots as he tears out the door, but the loudness of his attempts to stomp his feet into place is at least somewhat satisfying as he runs down the hallways, headed for the courtyard and the chance to escape to somewhere private enough to let loose. 

He is going to let out _everything_ just as soon as he’s safe in the anonymity of the woods. 

* * *

_Except_ — he runs out of steam once he hits the clearing. 

It’s late: he lost time, and now the moon is up and though the clearing is empty, the silver shadows all around are too hushed for him to feel comfortable interrupting. He heads over to a felled tree, rubbing his hands together against the cold. Once there, he perches lightly on the trunk, digging his heel anxiously into the loam covering the forest floor as he sits. 

His mind feels like a trap right now, so he tries to empty it of thoughts, watching for movement in the darkened forest around him instead. It’s not working very well, and Loretta’s words bounce around his skull even as he tries to block them out, shattering off of each other and combining strangely so he wants to keel over from the loudness of it all; fear and forgiveness, absolution and regret, _your_ witcher _,_ bring your _witcher,_ _why didn’t you bring your witcher._

He shakes his head, disrupting the angry buzzing and grips his hair tightly in his fists, wanting to tear it out and also wanting to twist his head off and throw it away, furious and maudlin by turns. His lungs ache, constricted and hollow; fluttering wildly in his chest as he pants angrily. His leg is bouncing up and down, almost against his direction, and he can’t stop his hands from clenching and unclenching, still sunk in his hair. 

_Fuck,_ what the fuck is he even _doing?_ The absurdity of his actions hit him all at once, that he should be so worked up over a letter. A _letter_ _?_ Really? Just words on paper and he’s having a breakdown, _gods how pathetic_ , and he laughs again, though it’s not really funny, but here he is, well-past middle aged, breaking down in the woods because his sister— _what?_

Tried to apologize for something which for three years had mostly not bothered him all that greatly beyond the _inconvenience?_ Castigated herself in a letter sent with no expectation of answer, only sent on a wing and a prayer and half a fool’s hope?

What did that mean? Dripping tears plop slowly against his boots as he stares sightlessly at the ground between them, trying desperately to make sense of the insensible. His palm burns with the remembered pain of a knife sliding across it and he shakes it out of his hair, sitting up and blowing all the air out of his lungs, trying to get his breathing into some kind of order. 

Maybe that scream is going to happen anyways: an uncomfortable pressure is building in his chest, swelling against his lungs and pressing in between his ribs, filling up every empty space with the combined _ragepaingrief_ of this misery made manifest. It builds, pushing against his teeth, and he growls, trying to mitigate it, to keep the explosion contained. 

_Fuck it._

The scream strips his throat raw, one horrible wail at the moon and the forest and the things which live there mostly free from the influence of sentient creatures; _fuck them_. Fuck them with their peaceful lives, uncomplicated by the human condition which leads to this kind of absolute misery.

His voice cuts off as he snaps his teeth together on the end of it, panting harshly: the forest is still around him, as if his cry had had impact, had _done something_ , and he screams again, drunk on the power of that. _Fuck this forest_ and fuck the uncomplicated lives that play out here: what do they know of pain? Of loss? Of grief so large it swallows you whole and turns the world gray and dull and uninteresting?

What do the trees know of sisters who would sell you out? Of mothers killing themselves with the flowers you named yourself after? What do the mice know of not measuring up? Of never being enough, of being ruined down to his very core: so rotten that even his family couldn’t stand him. Of being pulled between freedom and love and never knowing which was right? 

What do the owls know of his struggle? Of being wise enough to watch yourself fuck up, and yet unable to stop the behaviors that would see you unloved, would see you made less, would see you betrayed and cast out and hated. 

What does the forest know of his troubles?

 _Nothing_. Nothing until he screamed it into existence. 

His thoughts circle back around, unceasing. Even Geralt had sent him away, hadn’t he. And wouldn't all of this have been avoided if Geralt had just— he pauses, not wanting to think it; but it's _true,_ isn't it, that if Geralt had really loved him, if he really _did_ love him still, then he never would have yelled at him that way. 

He would have been fine, and Geralt could have saved him and his sister both, and none of this would have happened— he wouldn’t be screaming in the forest like a lunatic, freezing and hurting because he’s not ever been good enough for anyone, rotten all the way down to the core of him, some defect of personality which means he cannot be loved, is unworthy of even this: this which he can only ever send out and never receive and— he cuts himself off, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut: _no,_ he knows these aren't true thoughts. 

He has been down this road before and it is _false;_ Geralt does love him, and is sorry for the mountain, and there’s no way to know what might have been. 

He growls at himself, frustrated that this mess with Loretta is seeping out to color his other relationships, and he can’t stop his fist as it punches into his leg, once, then twice, the pain sharp and dull at the same time, enough to ground him: he knows better than this. 

The ache makes the air ice cold in his throat as he stares at the moon, listening for the forest sounds to return. An owl hoots disdainfully in the distance and he sinks down the log to brace his back against it, sliding to the cold hard-packed earth. “Bit old for this, arent’ I?” he whispers to the owl, dashing tears from his eyes. A raven caws in answer and he snorts into his palms, trying to pull himself back together. Right. He’s had his fit. Now it’s time to be a fucking adult about this. 

The decision is not enough to jolt him into movement so he sits there, alone in the forest, listening to the birds converse amongst themselves, until he loses feeling in his toes. 

* * *

He doesn’t think about the letter after that for almost two months. When he’d woken up the next day it had been ‘conveniently’ shuffled under some other non-important correspondence and he’d planned to forget about it entirely, except the damned thing won't leave him alone. It dogs his thoughts, so even while he’s trying to drill students on scansion and poetic form, the letter hovers, waiting in the back of his mind, poised to distract him at every turn. 

Always the same question: what are you going to do about me?

What did one _do_ about this sort of thing at all? He shies away from actually trying to find an answer, content to just... let the wound fester. Why not? It’s what they’d always done in the Pankratz home before. 

This serves him exceptionally well through the end of term, up until Yennefer comes to visit. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks, pushing her way into his rooms.

“You know,” he responds, briefly looking up from his desk, where he’s grading term projects from his students, “I hear _knocking_ is all the rage in Vizima these days. Might I suggest you give it a go, sometime?” 

“Mm, Suggest all you like, bard. I do what pleases me.” He glances over to find she’s taken possession of his bed, draped redolently over the pillows like she’s a goddess in need of tending. She very well may be; he’s hardly met a woman more beautiful or befitting the title. Despite her rude entrance, he is inordinately pleased to see her, busy as he has been these last few weeks. 

“Quite,” he laughs, turning away from his student’s songs. “But really, I’m surprised to see you, I thought you weren’t going to join us until Belleteyn this year.”

“Plans change, especially when you leave a letter unaddressed for a lengthy period of time.” She stares pointedly at his desk, and for a moment, as ice sheets down his spine, he thinks she’s talking about Loretta’s letter. 

Something of his panic must have shown on his face, because Yennefer sits up suddenly, leaning forward off the bed to stare him down. “So I ask again, bard, what’s wrong? And don’t lie to me, you’re pathetically easy to read, I’ll know.” 

He doesn’t want to tell her, is the thing. She’s his best friend, this is true, but she’s also damnably hard to impress, and the idea of exposing this... mistake? Of letting her see, truly, how badly this has rattled him, _stings,_ all the way down to the core of him. What does this compare to all that Yennefer has endured? 

“Don’t do that, Jaskier.” Yennefer reaches out to touch his leg, a grounding pressure. 

“What have I told you about reading my mind?” He jerks away from her, standing up and pacing towards the door, then turning sharply and pacing the other way when he doesn’t find the escape he’s looking for.

“I will stop reading your mind when you learn to stop shouting your thoughts as if they are news from the town crier, Jaskier!” Jaskier growls at her, and Yennefer rolls her eyes in response, crossing her legs disdainfully at him. “Come now, bard, come here and sit, I know only that you don’t want to tell me something because you think I’ve been through worse, and I think we both know that doesn’t mean anything. Not truly,” she pats the bed, then tilts her head at him when all he does is cross his arms in response. 

They stare at each other for another minute before Jasier breaks, gamely ignoring Yennefer’s satisfied smirk as he finally moves to sit next to her on his bed. 

“Don’t!” he warns as she opens her mouth to be smug at him, “just don’t say anything.” 

She subsides, rearranging herself on the bed so she’s facing him and can lean back against the headboard. He scoots further on the bed until his back is against the wall, folding his legs so he’s sitting criss-cross, a position that makes him feel as if he were back to being a student, staying up too late with Priscilla and Shani, sharing stories and heartbreak and working frantically on assignments due the next morning.

They fall into silence, Yennefer waiting, no doubt, on him to start this conversation. Quite frankly, he doesn’t want to. A few more minutes pass in silence and then Yennefer, impatient, reaches out to jab him with her foot. “I have asked you a question twice now, and we both know I’m not a person that repeats themself.” She pokes him again and he swats at her, ignoring her gentle laugh as she rearranges her legs so they’re draped over his lap. He grabs onto her, tapping a restless pattern against the jutting bone of her ankle. 

“I don’t suppose you’d accept ‘nothing’ as a genuine answer?” He asks, avoiding her face by staring out the tiny window above his desk. The flowers are blooming and it’s a gorgeous view. She kicks him in reply, and he tightens his grip on her ankle to stop her from kicking him again, but it distracts him from the window as he turns to glare at her. “Alright, fine, message received,” he growls at her smiling face. 

“It can’t be as horrible as you’re making it you be, bardling, stop hiding and just get out with it. I’ve places still to be today.” 

“Oh, you mean the entire purpose of your visit wasn’t simply to check on me?” He smirks at the frown on her face, glad to have seen through her on this matter. “You’re not nearly so inscrutable as you think, my dear, I know you’ve only come to see me, though I’ve no idea how you knew I needed it.” 

“In truth I hadn’t noticed, since I was the one who hadn’t replied to your latest missive, but dear Geralt was all in a flutter because it had been two _entire months_ since you last communicated with him and he _begged_ me to come look in on you.”

“He begged?” Jaskier scoffs, not believing her for a second.

“Alright, begging may have been an exaggeration, but he did call me on the Xenovox to ask me to visit you. He’s on his way as well, you should know.” 

“What? But we’re meeting next month in Houtborg! He’s that concerned?” 

“You have to admit,” Yennefer says, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes, “it’s quite unusual for you to be the taciturn one in this particular dynamic. And considering the state you’re in, I should say he’s well within his rights to be concerned.” 

He groans, a long sound pulled out from the very core of him, leaning forward over his and Yenn’s legs to drop his face into his hands. “It’s so stupid!” he cries, still talking into his palms. “I just—” 

Now that he wants to tell her, of course, he’s having a hard time putting the words in order. He drags his hands down his face, propping his chin on his fists, and then, as his eyes alight on his desk, decides perhaps the best words for this are not his own. “I got a letter, and I need you to read it and tell me what the _fuck_ to do, because I’m absolutely lost.” 

It only takes him a minute to scramble up to his desk and grab it. As he comes back he clambers over Yennefer so that they’re side-by-side in the narrow bed, crowded together at the shoulders. He hands it over, and then does his best not not to notice her careful non-reaction as she reads through the letter. 

“Well, that’s fucked.” Yennefer says finally at the end, and Jaskier throws his hands up in the air, glad to have someone validate his stance on this. 

“ _Right!?_ ” he exclaims, getting truly worked up now. “How am I supposed to take this? It’s been _three_ _fucking years_ , Yennefer! I thought we were done with this!” He slumps into her shoulder, staring petulantly at the damning paper held in her hand still. “I don’t know what to do.” 

Which is the shameful thing, is it not? Shouldn’t he know? Oughtn’t this be a very clear decision, to either cut off the person who hurt you, or forgive them and then move on from it entirely? 

Yennefer pats his leg again, re-reading through the letter just out of his sightline. He’s staring very studiously at their knees, surprised by just how much longer his legs are then hers. He never thinks of her as particularly short in comparison to him, but there’s the evidence in the way his limbs stretch a clear six inches further down the bed than hers do.

“You could kill her,” Yennefer says, off-handedly, still reading the letter though again, as if that isn’t the most abhorrent thing she’s said to him since the time she tried to tell him he was _visibly aging._

“She’s my only sister!” he protests, sitting up just long enough to glare at her. At her apologetic shrug, he slumps back down again. 

“Always worked for me,” Yen offers, taking her hand off his leg to smooth it through his hair. It’s comforting, and Jaskier sinks into it, overcome with sudden gratitude for how far their relationship has come in the last few years.

“Yes, well, as has been discussed before, your situation was incredibly different from mine. I was just a spoiled brat dissatisfied with my lot in life; it’s not the same thing at all.” Yennefer’s hand stutters against his scalp, and she puts the letter down. She gets a solid grip on his hair and then forcibly turns his head so he’s got no choice but to stare up at her.

“Do not compare us as if there is one that might be better than the other, Jaskier. You’re smarter than that. I needed things I didn’t receive, and you needed things that you didn’t receive and that’s all there is to it. It’s a _godsdamned tragedy_ , but we don’t let it keep us small.” She shakes him slightly when he tries to look away, uncomfortable with the level of intensity in her violet gaze. “We’ve talked about this, Jaskier. It’s not meant to be compared.” Having said her piece, she loosens her grip, and then rubs her fingers in small circles to soothe his scalp, so he settles back down on her shoulder with only a little grumbling. “Have you written back to her?” 

“I’ve no idea what to even say, much less what I feel about the whole thing.” He feels stupid about this now, but what is the use in hiding from Yennefer? “I read it and had a teensy, _weensy_ little breakdown, and then hid from it for the past two months, hence the lack of communication. Speaking of,” he says, twisting slightly to look up at her, “if you see Geralt before me, will you send him my apologies?”

“I’m hardly a messenger service,” Yenn grumbles, despite that she came here essentially on a message from Geralt, “but I suppose, for you, just this once, I can be bothered to pass along word of your continued health.” He snorts into her shoulder and she flicks him on the forehead in retaliation. 

“ _Ow,_ ” he pouts, rubbing his forehead against her bony shoulder to soothe the smarting. Her dress today is nicely textured; the sleeve makes a gentle swishing noise as he shakes his head against it. 

“Stop that,” Yen says, batting at him idly. “You’re a bard, not a cat.” 

“I would make a wonderful cat,” he protests, continuing to swish his head against her dress. She gets a palm against his forehead and physically pushes him over so that he’s leaning in the corner against the wall, and then drops onto his shoulder, effectively reversing their positions. 

“You’d be even more of a nuisance as a cat, I won’t have it.” 

Rather than answer, he rubs the loose fabric of her skirt between two fingers, and lets the silence settle comfortably over them both

* * *

Of course, it’s not that easy. Speaking with Yennefer did soothe the immediate stress about the letter, but it hadn’t actually helped him decide what to do about it. Still, the problem plagues him. 

There’s been no further correspondence, (why would there be? He’d not replied and by all accounts it had been nearly two years since she’d even sent the damned thing) so realistically there’s no time-constraint, no requirement that he respond. 

But it reeks of unfinished business, and Jaskier can’t stand that. He’s a poet, and _worse_ , he’s a Pankratz. Curiosity and unkillable hope are perhaps the only two points of overlap to those particular claims. Hope that he might get his sister back, curiosity over what might happen if he does forgive her— if he even can. 

Hadn’t he originally shown up on her doorstep because she promised him love in a letter? Hadn’t his unfailing optimism and desire to be reunited led to this very scenario they’re in now? 

Hadn’t he been down this road before? 

And won't he— well. Won’t he go down it again? Doesn’t he always? How many times has he been burned and then walked back into the flames?

Begging for scraps of affection from people who should have offered it freely did seem to be his lot in life after all. 

It _hurts,_ the way this thought has _always_ hurt. Everytime he finds himself here, on the flip side of a rejection of some core part of himself, he always thinks: _Right. I’ll be better next time._ It’s the oldest lie he’s ever told, because _better_ really just means smaller, just means _quieter_ _,_ just means _invisible._

It’s antithetical to who he is. It’s untenable, impossible, utterly hopeless. He can’t keep carving pieces of himself away in the service of others. 

At this rate, there won’t be anything of him left.

* * *

It was all well and good to realize that this was dumb, and hurtful, and possibly the most self-sabotging act he’d ever committed, short of the semester he spent chasing after the approval of Valdo Marx before he realized what a pompous ass the man really was. But the realization isn’t enough to stop him from going through with it, in the end.

He _had_ thought about writing a letter, explaining himself in prose, (his natural skill set, after all, lay in explaining emotion through the written form). He could have lambasted Loretta, explained her sins in such intensive detail that she’d have no choice but to feel every inch of the hurt he could pile on her. 

He could have done that, and lost any chance of having a relationship with her. It would have made him into the monster, visiting pain upon a pain that was already bleeding her dry. Was not that the core of this grievance? Hurt given unto hurt only begat more hurt, not to put too fine a point on it.

So no, he hadn’t written the letter. He’d gone out to meet Geralt and Ciri and when they asked about his lack of response to _their_ letter, simply forgone any explanation beyond, “The end of term was insanely busy.” Geralt certainly hadn’t bought the flimsy excuse, but Ciri had seemed none-the-wiser. 

Yennefer had done him a favor, it seemed, and not reported anything of import to the witcher beyond “still alive.” But he was distracted, and prone to fits of moodiness, and they’d begun to notice.

He had felt unlike himself, despondent and distant, and some strange impulse had taken over and forced him to abscond in the dead of night, leaving a note explaining his absence, but not his destination. 

He needs to do this, and Geralt can accept his explanation later. 

(Unless he doesn’t accept it, and Jaskier loses this too. Fear of this potential outcome sits curled behind his conscious thoughts, waiting and watching— preparing to gut him should it come true.)

All of which has led to his presence here: once again standing on the steps of a house he’d thought he’d never return to, regretting and questioning every single decision that has led to this moment. 

He’d made most of the journey (damnably long as he’d undertaken it on foot, and they’d been nowhere near Kerack when he’d separated from Geralt and Ciri) in a sort of fugue state, lost in imaginative rehearsals of the coming conversation. 

Every way it might shake out, he’d done a playthrough of, accounting for all the strangeness and oddities he could and yet: none of them have rung true, or helped, and so here, on the doorstep, with all the planning time lost, he finds himself void of words to say. His heart is no clearer, nor more set upon any path than it had been when he’d first received the letter, nearing eight months ago now. 

He can leave. The thought comes to him unbidden, so suddenly his feet are already turned to go before his brain catches up. No one’s seen him approach the doors, and he knows there's no windows with a clear enough view of the path that someone might have caught a glimpse of him as he walked up. He can leave, and no one will know, and he won’t have to do this. 

The thought is so tempting, he almost follows through, but some hidden resolve stops him in his path, the soles of his feet braced over the edge of the step. Jaskier steps back, moving to lean against the rough stone wall to the left of the door. 

Across from him, he notices a slight red discoloration to the flagstones, remnants of a childhood accident; he’d pushed Lottie too hard while playing, and she’d slammed backwards into the ground, cutting her head open and bursting into stunned tears at the same time. Her phantom, half-remembered cries echo in his heart, and he looks away from the spot, staring instead at the door. 

He can leave, he thinks, but he’s already knocking. 

* * *

Once, when Jaskier was very small, his mother had caught him trying to cut the hair off Loretta’s dolls. She’d said his singing was worse than Father’s snoring, and that he’d never be a bard because he had to be the Viscount. So naturally, he was going to get back at her. His mother had drifted by him in the kitchen as he searched for a knife, then, seeing him grab one, followed him slowly to Loretta’s room, ghosting along the hallways behind him. 

She’d not said anything while he searched for the dolls, content to watch from her spot holding up the door. (This was standard behavior for her, a sort of half-there spectatorship of their lives as they orbited around her; Jaskier had stopped asking for her acknowledgement the summer before this, resigned to the fact that it was only granted fleetingly and in small doses.) 

She didn’t say anything at all until he was struggling to keep the hair pulled taut enough that he could slice through it, trying to hold the knife and the doll in the same hand and getting nowhere fast. 

“What has the doll done to you, Julian?” 

He looked up, grip tightening convulsively on the doll and knife as if she planned to take them from him. “Loretta told me I’m never gonna get into Oxenfurt. She says they only let in real men, not cry babies.” He’d only been crying because she wouldn't let him play with her and her friends even though he was getting way better at Knucklebones. He even knew all the rules now, not that Lottie ever gave him a chance to practice. 

“I asked what the doll had done, my little buttercup,” she said, drifting into the room to come sit next to him on the bed. 

“It’s Lottie’s stupid doll,” he relaxed his grip as he fought the urge to lean into his mother. The solid warmth of her felt like a magnetic pull on his skin, as if he would fall into her if only she came close enough. 

“Mm,” she hummed, reaching over to take the doll from him. He let her, allowing her to take the knife as well. “It’s an awfully pretty little doll, Lottie has,” she mused, brushing the doll’s hair out of its eyes. “Seems a shame to cut it all away to punish her. It’s not the doll’s fault that Loretta upset you.” 

“It’s just a dumb doll,” Jaskier muttered, kicking his feet angrily against the bedframe. He didn’t like being yelled at, and being in any kind of trouble was basically always being yelled at. 

“It’s an innocent doll, which does not deserve your ire. But cut the hair.” she said suddenly, tossing the doll back in his lap. “Will you feel better if the doll is ugly?” 

“Yes,” he said sullenly, even though he didn’t really think he would.

“Then here,” she put the knife back in his palm, and held the doll’s hair taut. “Make it ugly.”

* * *

He blinks out of the memory, shaking off the phantom sounds of the knife slicing through the synthetic hairs, the soft _shnick_ that had stuck with him even more than Lottie’s cries when she’d discovered the mutilated doll. The remembered sound is so loud in his head he almost misses the door opening, pulling back at the last minute to avoid getting smacked with it as it swings outwards.

* * *

Here’s the thing: Jaskier _knows_ what he’s like. There’s a silence in tragedy and sorrow and grief that he’s been filling all his life as fast and as furiously as he could; anything to stave off the ringing tonality of all that held-back grief, those generations behind his mother of loss and sorrow and melancholy: a language, _dead_ , a culture, _dead_ , a family, _dying_. 

This is the truth of all dysfunction: it’s inescapable. 

This is the truth of all families: they’re the same.

* * *

Loretta opens the door. Jaskier is off-kilter from having to jump back to avoid it, and also the turmoil of his thoughts, so the sudden impact of the blurred shape shouting his name that slams into him knocks him fully back into the stone wall of the house. 

“Ow, fuck, what the _hell?_ ” he shouts in alarm, wincing as his head slams off the bricks. His only answer is renewed sobbing as Loretta breaks down against his chest. “Ahh, gods, Loretta,” he says, patting her gently on the back. “Right umm, Lottie? Can you—” gently as he knows how (which is fairly gentle all things considered: he’s comforted many a weeping woman suddenly overcome with a fit of guilt for cheating on a husband, or one breaking down upon realizing her husband didn’t love her and well, right person wrong time and all that) he extricates himself from her grip, ignoring the stirrings of uneasy guilt in his gut. 

“I’m sorry, I just, I never thought I’d see you again, Oh, _fuck_ , I’m so sorry,” she manages to gasp out around her continued sobbing as she backs up through the door. “Come in, come in,” she cries, wiping tears from her eyes and swallowing down sobs before they can burst out of her chest, sounding choked and pained, and all the things that Jaskier feels inside but won’t show, as she leads him back into the sitting room. She’s not looking at him, and he’s having a hard time looking at her, but they both take seats on opposite soft-filled sofas. 

Silence falls, uncomfortable, oppressive. 

One of them needs to break it, but Jaskier is abruptly so _fucking_ tired. The idea of breaching what ills and sorrows they hold between them feels as endless as that mobius strip his colleague was proposing, as impossible as taking down an arch-griffon by himself, as inescapable as a deal with the fea, constricting and tightening around them so they are trapped by both the silence and the breaking of it. 

“Say something,” Loretta chokes out suddenly, shattering his thoughts. “Please,” her voice cracks, and she clasps her hands together in front of her mouth, a mockery of prayer, though he doesn't remember or know if she was ever that devotional. There’s so much he doesn’t know. 

“I got your letter.” It’s stupid and trite, but it’s the only thing he can think to say. 

Loretta laughs, shrilly, edging on hysterical, “Yes, I gathered, I just— _Oh,_ I’m so— gods, I’m just so happy to _see_ you!” She jolts forward like she intends to get up and cross the distance between them, but she catches herself, sitting down on her own hands with flushed cheeks. That, at least, he remembers. They’d both always been impulsive as hell. 

“I—” Jaskier needs to say something, he knows, but words fail him again: seeing her, in front of him, has shaken him up. There’s anger still, festering in his gut, but now he finds it’s not— not at Loretta at all. He thinks again of the question his mother asked him: _will you feel better if the doll is ugly too._

He hadn’t, in the end. Only guilty for cutting the hair and making Lottie cry: he’d never liked making anyone upset. She may have played a part in Nilfgaard capturing him, but under duress only, and clearly she regrets it: it won’t make him feel better to make the doll ugly, to spit out his hurt at Loretta. 

“Do you remember, when I cut all the hair off your dolls?” he asks suddenly, looking up at her. Nervous laughter spills out of her mouth and she raises one hand to brush hair out of her eyes, pushing the dark strands back behind her ear; a nervous tick from childhood— he does know her, doesn’t he, in the ways that matter. 

“Of course I remember, _gods_ that made me so _mad,_ I was furious with you for so long.” 

“You didn’t talk to me for a week,” he adds, lost in the memory now. “But you forgave me, eventually, didn’t you?” She must have— they’d had good memories between them after that, though he can’t remember if she ever said.

“Oh, gods, of _course_ I did. We never really had to say the words, y’know? It was just... over one day, and we moved on.” There’s a breathless anticipation behind her voice, and he nods to himself, feeling it too. “I think we’ve always been like that,” she whispers, rubbing her fingers together in small circles: he realizes, abruptly, that he’s doing the same. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready yet.” He looks up at her wet gasp, and his heart lurches to see the tears in her eyes. “But I think I will be someday.” The painful thorns tangled in his chest lurch uncomfortably and he barrels on, needing to let go of everything he’s holding in. 

“It’s just— I’m so _angry,_ and it’s not at you, but I can’t—” he cuts himself off, blinking tears from his eyes as he tries to name whatever horrid thing is clawing at his heart, “I can’t think of you without thinking of what they did to me, and it’s not _fair,_ it’s _not,_ but it’s what we’ve got and I am still so fucking _angry,_ Lottie, I can’t—” that’s anger in his chest, and no small amount of grief and he wants to destroy something, to _rage_ and _lash out_ and _hurt_ but he knows that wouldn’t help, knows that it’s pointless and harmful and that he shouldn’t— but the urge is a hard one to beat back. 

“That’s okay,” Lottie gasps, her voice gone thick with the tears dripping down her face. “It’s okay, I’m just, I’m just so _sorry,_ and so glad you’re still alive and I—” she interrupts herself with a sob that sounds ripped from her breast, and Jaskier’s own heart lurches, the thorns of that cursed anger scraping sharp lines against the walls of his chest; begging for release. 

“I’m so _fucking_ sorry, and glad, and just—” she hides her face in her hands, laughing semi-hysterically against Jaskier’s continued silence. “I’m so happy you’re alive and that you don’t hate me, you have no idea.” She drags her hands down her face, looking up at him over her fingertips, her mouth still caged behind her palms. “I love you, and I’ve missed you, and I— I don’t want to go for years without talking to you again, _please._ I _know_ I have no right to ask—” 

“Stop, stop” he interrupts, choking around the grief in his heart and the pain in his throat, “of course, of course you can _ask,_ it wasn’t your fault, Lottie, they threatened your son, and you tried and it just—” he cuts himself off, unclenching his fists from where his fingernails had cut into his palms with his instinctive anger. “It sucks, but you can’t—” it’s his turn now, it seems, to be talking through half-contained sobs. _“Gods_ Loretta, I don’t want that either. I just, I need time but I still love you, I never stopped.” 

And isn’t that the crux of it: that he hadn’t stopped, not ever. Not even when it would have been easier. “You’re my sister.” That bond goes deeper than he realized, and it’s not blood: though they do share that, because he stopped loving his father the first time he realized he’d never _seen_ Jaskier, and he’d never once regretted it. 

It’s a choice he made the first time he stood up for her, a choice she made the first time she stood up for him: they chose each other and they didn’t have to, and he wants so badly to be past this: to be able to love her without complications— perhaps that’s impossible, but he wants it so intensely the desire feels large enough to drown in. “I won’t let it be three years again before I see you, but I just. I need more time, still.” 

He swallows down an instinctive apology for the thorns still tangled in his chest, and stands up suddenly, uncomfortable. She stands up too, holding out a hand to him.

“Just, _wait—_ you can stay? The journey must have been long, and I— I can get a room ready, this was your home once too, I never wanted you to feel unwelcome here.” Loretta smiles at him, eyes still shining with tears. 

“I can’t Lottie, not yet at least. I—” he cuts himself off, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to get your hopes up, I just didn’t know how to write it down in a letter, but I—” Jaskier blows out a shaky breath, gathering the courage to look back at her. “I can’t promise I’ll visit regularly, but I can write.” 

“That’s more than I ever expected, _oh gods,_ I’m— I’m so sorry still, but thank you.” 

“Fuck, _please_ _,_ Lottie don’t _thank me,_ this isn’t—” there’s no good way to explain the horrid anger her constant apologies and gratitude are engendering in him but the sudden hot flash of irritation is as irrational as it is short-lived. “Just— I love you still, but I can’t stay. I’m going to leave now, but I promise I’ll write, and you can send me letters at Oxenfurt, and I’ll respond, I swear it.”

Lottie nods, slowly, and he leaves her there, nodding behind him. “I love you,” she whispers, just on the edge of his hearing. He pauses at the door, knocking his fist against it in a gentle tap. 

“Me too,” he whispers to the wood, and then he steps out into the yard; it feels a little like breathing again to be out in the sunlight, shining brightly to combat the bracing chill of the autumn winds. They’ll be okay. 

Jaskier starts the long walk back to Geralt and Ciri with a lightness to his steps that's been missing for almost three years.

* * *

He takes a detour on the way back, spurred on by an idle thought and the knowledge that no one is waiting on his imminent return. The village is smaller than he remembers it, but then, he supposes he was a bit smaller himself the first time he came through here. 

He wanders into the inn, hoping the innkeeper will have the information he’s after. It’s a modest place, and the dinner crowd is already gathered around a singing bard, performing with a hurdy-gurdy. Jaskier smiles at the performance, enjoying their rendition of Priscilla’s latest ballad. He’ll have to let her know how far that one had traveled; she’ll be pleased. 

He secures an ale and a plate of food, content to let his questions wait until the dinner rush dies down. The meal is good, a hearty lamb’s stew with peasant’s bread, and while the ale wouldn’t stand up to Yennefer’s scrutiny, it suits his tastes just fine. 

A comfortable hour passes, listening to the bard cycle through the latest hits of the continent, enjoying the atmosphere and watching the locals with idle curiosity. He doesn’t recognize any of them, but then; he hadn’t actually spent much time in the village when he was last here. He brings his tankard back up to the bar, figuring now’s as good a time as any to ask after his purpose in this town. 

“Barman! A moment of your time please!” he calls out as he leans against the long bar, attracting the attention of the man serving drinks down the way slightly, and also the pretty barmaid he’s handing the drinks to. The barman makes a short gesture at Jaskier, then finishes his taks before making his way over, wiping his hands on a stained rag that he slings back into his apron strings when he’s finished with it. 

“What can I do ya’ for?” he asks as he comes over to stand nearer to Jaskier. 

“Just a bit of information, my good man,” Jaskier smiles winningly at him, though he merely raises one eyebrow and gestures at him to carry on with it then. “Right!” Jaskier starts brightly, forging ahead despite the less than stellar attitude he’s faced with. “I’m looking for two young ladies who helped me out a while back. Hoping to have a chat if they’re around.” 

“Names.” The barman grunts, unimpressed.

“Razea? Or Odase, though I do think they were rather close if my memory is correct.” 

“Ay, I know the lasses,” the barman tells him, “they both went off not more’n a season ago now, wanting to see the world. Think they was headed for that school north a’ Temeria.” 

“Oxenfurt?” Jaskier asks, surprised and pleased in equal measure. What a thought.

“Ayup, that’s the place. Broke their mammie’s hearts, they did, leaving, but you know young’uns. Bit of travel’s good for ‘em.” The barman squints at Jaskier suspiciously. “What do ya want with the lasses?” 

“Oh I just— they helped me out, when I was in a spot of trouble, and I wanted to thank them for it. That’s all.” He raps the bar with his knuckles, and takes the refilled tankard the barman hands to him. “Thank you,” he raises his cup at the man and gets a nod in reply before he retires back to his table. 

He hopes they’re well, the two of them, and resolves to check up on them when he goes back next spring. Maybe he can repay them for their kindness after all. He’ll carry on to Kaer Morhen in the morning, catch up to Geralt and Ciri and explain himself, probably get scolded too, for his troubles. He sips at his ale and listens to the bard, and lets the tension in his chest unknot. 

He’ll write a letter when he gets there, he thinks. To let Loretta know he’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, remember how I wrote elided to process my family feels??? HOLY SHIT y'all this took me so much time and effort and hard fucking work but I really hope it pays off for you guys as much as its paid off for me. 
> 
> As ever, if you enjoyed please consider leaving a kudos? a bookmark? a cømmënt? I would love to know what you guys think! 
> 
> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> (Also, check on your local teacher: we r not ok.)


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